USAID chief visits relief camp run by JuD arm?

Islamabad: Conflicting claims were made
on Wednesday about the visit of USAID`s Indian-origin chief Rajiv
Shah to a relief camp, run by a front organisation of
Jamaat-ud-Dawah, in Pakistan`s flood-hit Sindh province and
his handing over of aid to it.

JuD spokesman Yahya Mujahid said USAID Administrator
Shah had visited the relief camp run by Falah-e-Insaniyat
Foundation at Sukkur in Sindh.
"He handed over two trucks of relief materials for
distribution among the flood victims," Mujahid told PTI.

The US embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire denied that the
camp visited by Shah was run by Falah-e-Insaniyat.

He told agency that `Save the Children`, which receives
US funding, is providng supplies to the camp.

Snelfire did not rule out the possibility that Falah-
e-Insaniyat may have provided aid to the camp in the past.

Journalists who visited the camp, located within a
school, said they had seen a banner with the words "RELIEF
CAMP FALAH-E-INSANIYAT FOUNDATION" hanging at its entrance.

A statement issued by JuD quoted Shah as saying that
the JuD has been "actively taking part in operations to
provide relief to flood victims".

The statement also quoted USAID`s Indian-origin chief
as expressing appreciation for the work done by the JuD, which
is headed by Hafiz Saeed, whom India blames for masterminding
the Mumbai terror attack.

Senior JuD leader Hafiz Abdur Rauf, who is chairman of
the Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, said the body has been
working with international relief agencies to provide aid to
flood victims.
He said international bodies should come forward to
provide more aid to the people affected by the deluge.

The Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation is a front for the
JuD. It was formed after the Pakistan government clamped down
on the JuD in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The Foundation came to prominence last year when it
set up camps to help the thousands of people displaced by
anti-Taliban operations in northwest Pakistan.

People who have visited camps set up for flood victims
by Falah-e-Insaniyat, including Western journalists, have
reported seeing JuD flags and banners.

Photographs of volunteers working at these camps have
shown them sporting the JuD`s emblem on their clothes.

The JuD was formed by Saeed after the Lashker-e-Taiba
was banned during the regime of former military ruler Pervez
Musharraf. Saeed claims the JuD has no links with the LeT.

When the UN Security Council banned the JuD in the
wake of the Mumbai attacks, it described the group as a front
for the LeT.

Despite the Pakistan government`s direction to all
provinces to crack down on banned groups raising funds or
operating camps for flood victims in the name of different
organisations, sources said the JuD and other proscribed
outfits were still running camps in different parts of the
country, including Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh.

The statement issued by the JuD said the group and the
Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation would remain in flood-hit areas
till all the victims were rehabilitated.